cnAP. vi.]

ST. JOHN OH JERUSALEM.

199 .

barbarians, but still more so of the Rhodians. Thento our extreme joy arrived a ship with news of alarge Christian succour, ready to sail from Naples ; 1but it was false, our last hope. Likewise the formervizier, Mustapha, sailed for his government inSyria, and a third vizier, greater captain, soon wonthe Barbacan, eventually the loss of Rhodes. Har-quebusades then succeeded to cannons, and immensewas the slaughter, though not by wholesale, butnearly one by one; no obstacle any more. Yetthe Turks did not dare to advance. Already hadthree detachments of them got within Rhodes,across several streets, and into one of the principalsquares, by sapping behind a screen of timber, thatthey by degrees continued to push on as theChristians retired, and now those Turks wereprepared to march out, and draw up in the square,with only that fragile screen between them and us;but they too retreated, in obedience to the trumpet . 2The Turks, when they came to bury their dead,were dismayed, and covered with galling reproachesby the Rhodians, from what remained of the Avails.Between Knights of Rhodes it is invidious, andeven wicked, to draw distinctions; they were of all

1 Bosio : par. ii., lib. xx. 673.

2 Id. : id. id., 579.—Bourbon says the Barbacan,

(the Spanish) rvas lost on the 17th of December.